


Natasha's Nightmares

by agent35



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Nightmare Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7675000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent35/pseuds/agent35
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is plagued by nightmares, so she seeks comfort in Bucky's arms. He's still trying to figure out who the hell he is. She's trying not to stab him in her sleep. ((Tw: blood and character death both in a nightmare)).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natasha's Nightmares

         “Just for the night. For a couple of hours. Just until I calm down.” She dragged her gaze up from the floor, looking him in the eyes for the first time that night. She, of course, was met with that handsome smirk; the smirk that she somehow managed to love and hate more than anything at the same time.  
         “Just for the night.” He teased her as he swung the door open slightly wider, so she could squeeze past him. He hadn’t left her much room between him and the doorjamb, forcing her to brush up against the side of his chest. She was not naive enough not to realize that it was completely intentional. The fact that his smirk grew exponentially bigger only made it that much more obvious.  
  
         She wandered toward the bed that sat against the far wall. He simply watched her as she made her way across the room. There was something captivating about the way she gazed around, not like she was marking her exits or scoping for potential weapons, but like she was genuinely curious about what his room would look like. It was like she was trying to learn more about him because she cared about him, not because she was wary of an attack. In that moment, she wasn’t Natasha Romanov, 'Black Widow extraordinaire, feared by all!' She was his Natalia, sitting in his room in her pajamas with her hair pulled up, simply content. Or, she should have been content. She was happy to be back, happy to be speaking after the events in Washington, Bucharest, and Germany, but she was still plagued by nightmares. That, she feared, would never change.  
  
         He could tell that whatever nightmare she had been having had been particularly bad. Her hair was mussed, she smelled faintly like sweat, and she was asking to stay the night with him — something that she hadn’t done since their days in The Red Room. Everything in him told him not to ask, but as he made his way over to his dresser he couldn’t help himself.  
         “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, trying to sound casual. He opened the bottom drawer and rummaged around for a couple of moments. Not because there was anything to rummage around in, he was really just stalling. The drawer was practically empty. Most of them were. He didn’t own very many things; that was just yet another side affect of being a brainwashed assassin, locked in a freezer for years at a time. Hydra wasn’t one to give out very many handouts.  
         “Not particularly, no.” He nodded, settling on a pair of soft blue pajama pants and a shirt that had so many holes in it that most people probably wouldn’t even consider it a shirt. He turned around, pointing to the bathroom. She nodded, watching him slip into the other room and back out a few moments later with his toothbrush dangling from between his lips. He opened his mouth to say something but nearly spewed toothpaste down his front, so he returned to the bathroom.  
  
         When he came back he was changed, smelling overwhelmingly of minty toothpaste, and slowly making his way back to the bed as if he was unsure of what boundaries he could potentially be crossing. Natasha was still perched on the edge of the bed, looking at him accusingly.  
         “You know, James, you should really go to bed earlier. It’s nearly two in the morning. I’ve already fallen asleep three times and you haven’t even been in your bed.” It wasn’t intentional, but she could see the way he physically reacted to the name that he hadn’t heard in so long. The way his eyes widened just enough for her to notice, but not enough to be too obvious. She decided not to call him on it. She knew that if he didn’t want to be called James, he was more than willing to call her on it. The look, however, was gone in an instant, replaced by a smirk and a small snort. She was right, after all. He took another couple of steps closer, much less hesitant than he had been before. “Lock the door?” She asked, her voice much less guarded than before. It was a compulsion that he was far too familiar with. She couldn’t sleep without the door locked. It wouldn’t do much. She knew that. The lock would merely give her a few extra moments to prepare herself if anyone was trying to break in. But their past had brought them to a mutual understanding; the door remained locked.    
         “Old habits die hard, I guess.” Natasha didn’t know if he was referring to the fact that he didn’t sleep, or the fact that she needed the door locked. Perhaps both. She just nodded.  
  
         “What side do you sleep on?” She asked as he approached the bed again. She was already invading his bed in the middle of the night; she wasn’t about to steal his side too. She tried thinking back to the days of the Red Room. “You used to sleep on the right side of the bed, if I remember right. It’s been a long time, though, that could have changed.” He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the second half of her rambling. He simply looked at her, completely blank-faced and utterly confused.       
         “Did I?” He whispered. He seemed so shocked and taken aback at this microscopic peek into the person he used to be. In a single instant, Natasha felt the guilt flood her body completely. She hadn’t considered the fact that there was a huge possibility that he wouldn’t remember something like that; that the KGB might have tried wiping his mind completely clean of any memories that could lend him such information. He walked away from her again, pacing for a moment with his back to her before making his way over to his little desk. He quickly produced a key from around his neck and opened the bottom drawer. He was kneeling in front of it, so it was difficult for Natasha to see what was actually in the drawer, but it seemed to be full of newspaper clippings, new photos on glossy paper, old photos stained with age, and a little leather notebook.  
         He pulled out the notebook and reached for a pen from the desk. The leather was old and worn, the way it gets when someone has paged through it hundreds of times over. The purpose it was serving was quite obvious; he was scribbling down all of his thoughts and memories in the tiny little notebook, paranoid that he would lose his memories again at any moment. His memories were coming back, but they were extremely spotty. There were so many holes in his memory it was kind of ridiculous. He was desperate for any information about himself, even if it was something as insignificant as the fact that he used to sleep on the right side of the bed during his days in The Red Room. It was something. He quickly jotted it down, next to a few other notes that he had made that day, and shoved the little book back in the drawer. Pulling gently on the handle, he ensured that it was locked before turning back to Natasha. He looked more than a little sheepish, but when he looked up at her face he was met with a look of understanding that comforted him.  
  
         “So, James,” she said, “which side will it be?” She gestured dramatically to the bed. He hadn’t found that any way of sleeping was particularly comfortable with a metal arm, but he figured it would be best to test out Natasha’s theory that maybe he did like that side of the bed the best.  
         “You take that side, I’ll take this one,” he said, pointing to the left side of the bed, and then the right. “We’ll see if you’re right, Natalia.” She smirked a little, crawling over to the left side of the bed. The name shouldn’t have made her smile. It was from a time when she was a prisoner of The KGB, brainwashed and enslaved to do their bidding. To them, however, she had only ever been “Black Widow,” or before that, “Romanova.” James was the only one who had ever called her Natalia. It was from a darker time, yes, but he was the light in the middle of that darkness. She wriggled down into the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin as he lay down beside her. His hair was long, dark, and falling into his eyes. It hadn’t been like that before. In the days of The Red Room, his hair had almost always been cut. Not styled, per se, but it had never been as long as it was. It was never falling into his eyes like it was as he lay there beside her. It was odd for her to see him that way, but she didn’t hate it. More than anything, in that moment, she wanted to reach out and play with his hair. Somehow —just barely— she was able to restrain herself. It was too much, too soon; she knew it would only make him uncomfortable.  
  
         Bucky bunched the pillow up beneath his head, desperately trying to find a way to lay down that wasn’t completely painful. Having a metal arm made everything harder, especially sleeping. The metal was too cold. The point where metal and flesh fused together ached. The metal was pressing itself into his skin painfully, like it was trying to get inside of him, like it could take control of his entire being. Sometimes the metal components whirred in his ears while he slept, ripping him out of sleep and into a state of sheer terror. Sometimes, although very rarely, he would even roll over in his sleep and hit himself with his metal arm. It hurt like hell. Everything hurt like hell, but sometimes he could maneuver himself into a comfortable enough position to get about four hours of sleep at a time; four hours was a great feat for Bucky. But it was a lot easier when he didn’t have to worry about someone sleeping next to him.  
  
         “James, you don’t need to maul your pillow.” He could hear her smirk, and he immediately paused. He knew she was joking, but he still felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t even realized that he had still been kneading at his pillow and flopping around in an attempt to get comfortable.    
         “Sorry. I’m not used to… company.” The pause was barely a second long, but she heard it. It was weird for both of them to be back in the same bed after so many years. Everything was so different, but if she closed her eyes, all she could smell was him, and it was like the years hadn’t passed and nothing had changed. They were still scared and young and in love, trying not to get caught—or killed—by their superiors in the Red Room.  
         “I’m sorry, James. I can go if—“  
         “Oh, no! No, it’s fine!” He insisted far too quickly, mentally kicking himself. “Really, it’s fine! You don’t have to go anywhere! I just can’t get comfortable. It’s this damn arm.” He could just barely see her face in the dim light coming from the window, but he could see the little smile on her face. And then he could feel her scoot a little closer. They had both been at the complete opposite ends of the bed. Each of them was worried about scooting too close and alienating the other, so there was a gigantic valley of empty space between them that Natasha was slowly closing. Bucky rolled back over onto his stomach, taking the opportunity to close the gap a little bit more. Then, his arm was pressed up against her back. The cold of the metal sent a small shiver up her spine, but she didn’t move away and he fell asleep easier than he had in weeks. The dull, painful aching of his metal arm had subsided enough for him to be comfortable.

  
~ ~ ~

  
  
         She was gasping. Everything was painful. She could hear screaming all around her. The pain in her gut was blinding. The red puddle was growing around her. Her own blood was seeping out of her wound and pooling on the ground, soaking into the dirt. She couldn’t stop coughing up blood. She could feel it running down her chin. The puddle wouldn’t stop. It was too much blood, she knew it. She should be dead, but the puddle just kept growing.  
  
         And then he was there. And the pain was gone. And suddenly, it wasn’t her blood anymore. It was his. His eyes were blank and expressionless, staring up at her. He wasn’t blinking. He wasn’t breathing. The wound was in his abdomen instead of hers, and she knew it was her fault. She was holding a gun that she hadn’t been holding just moments before. She threw it aside and dropped to her knees to try to stop the bleeding. It was too late; there was a part of her that knew that. He was gone. But somehow the blood was still flowing and she just needed to stop it. She had to at least try to save him. It was everywhere. She was drenched in his blood from head to toe. It was smeared on her cheeks, mixing with her tears. It covered her hands like gloves. It stained her clothes. It was bright red, and both sticky and slippery all at once. And there was nothing she could do.  
  
         “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She whispered over and over, and over. The bullet hole in his gut made her want to vomit, but she just cried, sitting in the puddle of his blood. And it was all her fault.  
         Until it wasn’t. But, somehow, it still was. Because suddenly, he was there, standing over her. But somehow he was also laying there next to her, dead. He kicked her in the chest, sending her sprawling, and knocking the breath out of her. She wanted to crawl back over to his body. It was her fault. He was dead. She was going to die next; she needed to spend her last few minutes with him. But then he was on top of her. His metal hand closed around her windpipe and she couldn’t breathe. She gasped for air, clawing at his face, his arms, and his hand on her throat. Her lungs ached, screaming for air. She wheezed desperately.  
  
         He didn’t even recognize her. Or, if he did, he didn’t show it. A part of her thought that maybe he just didn’t care. His blue eyes were cold and hard, staring directly at her as he choked the life out of her. There was no mercy. No kindness. His glare did not waver, even as she clawed at his face. It was pure hatred and determination. Her struggling didn’t matter to him. He didn’t look away in shame as she fought. He stared directly into her eyes, watching as her vision went spotted and then completely black. He stared directly into her eyes as her life left them, and he didn’t seem to care at all.

  
~ ~ ~

         Her eyes flew open immediately, and it took everything in her not to gasp. Even awake, she could still feel the ghost of blood covering her entire body. It was like stepping off of a boat and still feeling the waves, except instead she was still feeling the stickiness of blood and overwhelming guilt. When she had gone to bed there had been a knife on the nightstand next to her. Now, it was in her hand. She didn’t remember grabbing it and she couldn’t see very well in the dark, but she could feel it in her hand, heavy and poorly balanced.  
  
         Next to her, she felt Bucky move. His hand slid toward her. All she could see were flashes from her nightmare of him choking her. Watching as her face turned blue and her eyes rolled back in her head. Panic surged through her entire body as his metal hand inched closer. Before she could stop herself, or think logically for even a moment, the knife was already lodged into his arm and she was crouched and ready for an attack at a moment’s notice.  
         He sat up groggily, first looking at her, and then to the knife that was sunken into the metal plates that made up his forearm. He eyed her for a moment before roughly pulling out the knife and tossing it to the other side of the room, far from her reach.  
         “Shit, Nat. Just because it’s metal doesn’t mean I can’t feel it.” He rubbed the gashed metal with his good arm, but didn’t really seem all too phased by it. He was used to pain. A small stab wound was nothing. Even if it had been his flesh arm, it still would have been nothing. He had been subjected to tortures that were far worse. He continued to stare at her, scrutinizing the crease of her forehead, trying to determine how best to go about helping her, or at least comforting her. Something was wrong. It was all too clear. Obviously, she wouldn’t have stabbed him if she hadn’t awoke in a panic. “Nightmares again, Natalia?” She simply nodded, eyes fixed on the mangled bit of metal where she had stabbed him. Her heart still pounded erratically.  
  
         Just after she had brought the knife down, she had realized that he wasn’t a threat. He was just sleeping. It was her fault, really. She had moved, so he had moved. And she stabbed him for it. She was overwhelmed with guilt. She had woken up thinking that she had just killed him, and that he had killed her in return. The dream had been so vivid; she hadn't doubted it for a moment. She had woken up scared and convinced that she was in danger. And then she stabbed him.  
  
         “I’m so sorry, James.” She reached out as if to touch the metal gash, but withdrew her hand in an instant. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at it.  
         “Natalia...” He reached out to take her hand, but she flinched away. He stopped for a moment, unsure about how to proceed from there. He couldn’t decide if she was scared of him, or if she was scared of hurting him again. She looked dangerously close to tears, something that he knew very few people had ever seen. “Natalia,” he whispered, pausing again, “you know that I’m not going to hurt you. Right?” She sat for a moment longer, still entranced and offended by the torn metal of his arm before her eyes snapped up to meet his.  
         “What? Of course I know that!” She had gone from sullen to absolutely offended in less than a second. She looked at him like she simply couldn’t believe that he would ever think that she would be afraid of him. She thought, for a moment, that she should reassure him. She thought she should whisper, “I’ve never been afraid of you, James.” But she knew it would be a lie, so she kept her mouth shut. Of course there had been times where she had been afraid of him. She knew that. Even he knew that. He would see right through her lies if she tried to insist otherwise. There had been multiple instances where someone had said the trigger words and he had been transformed from James into The Winter Soldier.

 

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

 

         The words still sent shivers up her spine. Of course she had been terrified. She had been terrified of him. Those eleven words turned him from her friend, into the man that thought of her as nothing more than his target. One time, he had almost succeeded. But that wasn’t him. Not in that moment. He was just James, and she was just Natalia. He was Bucky, and she was Natasha. She knew he was much more than The Winter Soldier. She just wanted him to know that.  
  
         “Come sit back down, Nat.” She had been slowly moving away from him from the moment that she had sunk the knife into his arm, and he had definitely noticed. He patted the empty space on the bed next to him. Reluctantly, she crawled back onto the bed next to him, resting against the headboard with her knees pulled up to her chest. She tried not to look at his arm, but she couldn’t help it. It was taunting her. At least, she thought, it wasn’t his other arm. She didn’t think she would be able to contain her guilt if he was bleeding everywhere. The metal arm could be fixed just as it was before. He stilled for a moment as she reached toward his arm for the second time. This time, she did not jerk away in disgust with herself. Her fingers grazed the rough metal. It had been completely smooth until it had met her knife.  
  
         “I’m so sorry, James. I didn’t mean to stab you. It’s just — I woke up from another nightmare, and I didn’t— I couldn’t remember where I was. And then you moved and I thought you were reaching for me. I— I thought you were attacking me. I panicked. And just as I realized it was only you… It was too late.” Just minutes before she couldn’t bring herself to touch the gash, but once she had started speaking she couldn’t stop. She could see some of the mechanics within the arm itself, but just barely. The cut wasn’t very wide. She still could not look him in the eyes. Instead, she studied his arm, running her fingers over the plates that slid together, and playing with his hands like she had so many years before. It was soothing, like for a moment time had never passed. He sighed contentedly. He could still feel the pain in his arm where she had stabbed him, but it wasn’t a normal kind of pain. It wasn’t the throbbing pain of being made of flesh and bone. It was more like a strange electrical feedback. It was almost how he imagined short-circuiting would feel like.  
         “It’s okay, Nat. This isn’t even my real arm.” He placed his other hand over hers. “This one is temporary. The real one needed some upgrades, so Tony gave me an old prototype of the real one to use in the meantime. He’s warming up to me. I actually had to talk him out of going completely overboard. I just really don’t think I need a laser finger. Tony insisted, but somehow I managed to talk him into just fixing it how it already was.” He smiled down at her, trying to look as reassuring as he possibly could. It wasn’t a lie. His normal arm was made out of much stronger metal. A simple knife wouldn’t have been able to pierce it.  
         “Does it hurt though? I mean... I did stab you. Even if it’s not the same as your normal arm…” She trailed off, tracing the lines of his arm with the tip of her finger. She knew that despite it being metal, he still had feeling in it. Somehow they had engineered it with the most advanced technology, so it was like a normal human arm in practically every way, except that it was made out of metal.  
         “No,” he lied, “It doesn’t hurt.” She searched his face, trying to determine whether or not he was telling the truth.  
         “I know you have feeling in your arm, James. I doubt it felt very nice to have a knife jammed into it.” She scooted a little bit closer.  
         “It’s fine, Nat. It doesn’t hurt. I'll admit that it didn’t feel good at first. But it’s fine now. It doesn’t hurt.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, but he didn’t defend his horribly obvious lie.  
         “I don’t believe you, James, but I’m not going to argue with you. You’re much too stubborn.” He flashed her a bright smile.  
         “You know me too well.”  
         “That, I do.”

  
  
         “Nat,” he hesitated, knowing she wouldn’t be happy that he was asking. “What was your nightmare about?”  
         “I—I don’t really want to talk about it. Tomorrow,” she promised. She was worried that he would think she was scared of him, which she wasn’t. That was always his fear. He just nodded. He never pried or forced her to talk about anything she didn’t want to. That, she thought, was why they got along so well. It made him easy to be around.  
  
         They sat there for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. They were both overwhelmingly relieved that the tension between the two of them seemed to have melted away. In the last few minutes, they had managed to scoot even closer together so that Natasha was practically in his lap. Not that he was complaining.  
  
         “What are you thinking about right now?” His voice was so low and gravelly that Natasha almost didn’t hear him. When she turned her head to look at him, he was already gazing down at her. His eyes were soft and unguarded, so different from how they were in the daytime. It was so odd for her to see him that way. His hair was messy and disarrayed from sleeping, his eyes were warm and gentle, he was wearing the comfiest looking pajamas, and he had a blanket pulled around his shoulders in a cape-like fashion. He looked domestic; there was no other way to put it. He didn’t look like The Winter Soldier. He didn’t look like James Buchanan, the man she used to know. He just looked how she thought he might have before the war, before everything happened; only his hair was longer.  
         “I was just thinking how somehow it feels like nothing has changed. Somehow at--” She glanced over at the clock, “— nearly four in the morning, it feels like it did before. Except it’s a lot less scary. We don’t have to worry about being killed for... this.” She gestured at the two of them and he chuckled softly, lacing their fingers together. She was surprised at his sudden affection, but she didn’t pull her hand away. It felt right, just as it had before. It always had.  
         “Well, Steve might kill us. But that’s a completely different story.” In the dim light that poured in from the window, he could just see her smiling. It was a genuine smile that she thought nobody could see. With everything in him, he wished that she would smile that way more often.  
  
         “I don’t want it to be like nothing has changed.” He said, suddenly. “If we pretend nothing has changed, then we’re ignoring the people we have become. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be those two scared kids in love. I don’t want to start over, but I don’t want it to be that way anymore.” He was silent for a moment, looking down at their hands in his lap.  
         “I agree. I like that idea, James. Very much. You’re a good man. You were then, too, but you’re an even better man now.”  
         “No, I’m not. Not really. You’re the only one who understands that, though.”  
         “You have come so far—“  
         “We.” He corrected her. “We have come so far.” She nodded in mock exasperation.  
         “Fine. We have come so far. It really would be a pity to think we had to sacrifice all that progress just to kiss again.”  
         “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He grinned delightedly, resting his hand on her cheek. “But I think we’ll always be two scared kids in love. That’s never going away.” He gave her fingers a light squeeze, and her heart skipped a beat. He still loved her. After all of those years. After torture and brainwashing. After years of both of them thinking that the other must be dead. After unimaginable trauma. After losing all of his memories. After shooting her in the abdomen in Odessa. After everything, he still believed in love. After everything, he still loved her.  
         “Oh, James. You always have been a romantic sap.” She kissed him before he even knew what was happening. It was the last thing he had been expecting. He had thought she would leave, or slap him, or laugh at him. Kissing him had not been on the list. After a moment or two of sitting frozen in shock, he kissed her back. Her hand grazed the stubble on his jaw and his hand made its way up to play with her hair. They were entranced in the moment. It wasn’t an urgent rushed kissed like so many of the ones they had shared in the past. It was a slow, loving kiss. There was a certain amount of urgency to it though, like they were drowning and the other was their only solace.  
  
         When they finally broke apart, they just sat there for a moment before exploding into a fit of soft laughter that they desperately tried to muffle with their pillows. For the first time ever they were free to be together. In the Red Room their relationship was punishable by death, or torture, or memory manipulation. Death was the least offensive option, something they never would have been granted. But now they were free. They could run around kissing all day, every day, anywhere they wanted. The only threat to them was the endless teasing they would get from Sam and Steve, but both of them knew they could handle that. They already did. He leaned in and kissed her again, only for a moment before pulling back.  
         Natasha opened her eyes, ready to tease him for cutting their second kiss so short, when she saw why. He attempted to hide the huge yawn, but for a super assassin he wasn’t very inconspicuous.  
  
         “We should sleep. I imagine Steve is going to be up early. If he finds out about us before we actually have the chance to tell him, he may try to strangle us.” Bucky just yawned again, nodding his head. He knew that she was right. They had to sleep. Then, they had to tell Steve. Steve knew about their past, and he knew about the residual feelings that Bucky had been harboring since he regained his memories. He didn’t think it would be a surprise for Steve. Bucky knew he would take it well, but he was still overly anxious.  
         “And if he finds us in bed together like this he might give us the talk,” Bucky added. Natasha just shuddered at the thought of Steve trying to give them the speech about safety and respect that he undoubtedly already had planned out in his head.  
         “Oh god. I don’t even want to think about that. I think it would actually kill me.” She screwed up her face, crinkling her nose like she had smelled something horrible. He laughed and kissed her on the nose before covering his mouth and stifling yet another yawn.  
  
         The two of them scooted back down so they were lying face to face. He pulled the blankets up around them, tucking the blanket around her, and pulling her closer.  
         “Goodnight, Natalia.”  
         “Goodnight, James.” He kissed her lips, and then her forehead. One last time, he pulled her closer. This time, they were pressed up against each other, and she had her face resting against his chest. She burrowed her face into the holey shirt. It smelled like him and her favorite laundry detergent. She sighed contentedly; she had waited so long to be able to fall asleep in his arms again.  
  
         Sleep, however, would not come to her. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes, but she was sure that she was going to lay there all night completely wide-awake. Somehow, Bucky knew that. He had been waiting for her to fall asleep first, just to make sure she didn’t stay awake all night torturing herself about his arm.  
         “You can’t sleep, can you?” She shook her head. It felt odd against his stomach. Her hair was tickling his chest and the underside of his chin.  
         “No. I’m scared to.”  
         “Why?”  
         “There’s always a new nightmare waiting. Every time I close my eyes.” She paused for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was different. It was softer, more vulnerable. “What if this time I wake up and stab you again. What if this time it’s not your arm?”  
         “I’m not worried about that.” He stroked her hair, running his fingers through the strands in a feeble attempt to calm her down. It usually worked, but it didn’t seem to be doing the trick.  
         “Well, you should be!” She sounded genuinely offended, which confused him. “Maybe I should go back to my own bed. I don’t know what I would do if I actually hurt you.” She thought about it for a moment, and then decided. She untangled herself from his arms and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before slipping out of bed. Just as she walked by him on her way to his bedroom door, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back toward the bed. He, however, hadn’t thought it through completely. She landed directly on top of him with her full weight. She didn’t weigh too much, but the sheer force of her landing on his chest was enough to completely knock the wind out of him.  
  
  
  
         “Sorry,” she mumbled miserably, giving him a moment to catch his breath. He just shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut.  
         “No. No, that was my fault.” He croaked, patting her leg reassuringly. It took him a minute or two to catch his breath, so Natasha waited patiently. She sat down next to him and played with his hair, because she knew he would want to argue his case in an attempt to convince her to stay the night.  
  
         “I really want you to stay.”  
         “I know, but—“  
         “No, really,” he said firmly, “I really want you to stay. I know you’re worried about hurting me because of what happened earlier, but I’m not. Even if I was, who better to be stabbed by?” She glared daggers at him. "Okay. No. Not funny. Sorry. I’m really not worried about it though, Natalia. Besides, I sleep much better when you’re here. I feel safer. Having you with me is how I imagine home must feel.” She sighed. He was cheesy, but he was always genuine about it.  
  
         “For the record. I still think this is a horrible idea, James. Just terrible.” He beamed at her, overjoyed at the prospect of waking up next to her. He pulled back the blankets to let her crawl under the covers again. She snuggled up to his side and stuck her face into the crook of his neck.  
  
         “You not wanting to stay… It’s because your nightmares are usually about me, aren’t they?” His voice was barely a whisper, his question was more of a statement, and his heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.  
         “Yes,” she whispered, sounding sad and broken. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you.”  
         “You said my name when you first fell asleep. Then, when you woke up, you stabbed me. I kind of figured.” He rubbed her back soothingly, trying to convey to her that he wasn’t upset. He wanted her to know that he understood. In the past, even he’d had nightmares about himself.  
         “I’m sorry, James. I’m not scared of you, I promise.”  
         “I know. I do think you should tell me about your dreams, though. I think it would help. How about in the morning I get up and make us something to eat and we’ll talk about your dreams? What do you say?” This time, Natasha was the one who yawned.  
         “I think that sounds like a good plan.”  
         “Good. Because you need some rest.” She yawned again, nodding into his chest. They both needed sleep terribly. He hoped that she wouldn’t have any nightmares and he desperately hoped that sleep would come quickly to her, because he made it a point to stay awake until she fell asleep. No matter how tired he was he didn’t want her to be upset and alone. He would choose her over sleep any day.  
  
         “James?”  
         “Mmhm?”  
         “I almost forgot to say that I love you too.” She could hear his heart beat a little faster, and both of them couldn’t help smiling. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head, and she snuggled into him. It didn’t take long, but he waited until he could hear her breathing slow down and even out. He waited until he could hear her soft snoring — snoring that she would never admit to— before he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep with her.  
         After everything, he still loved her. After everything, she still loved him back.  
  


 

 


End file.
